


• biochemistry •

by widowhunt



Series: living the jily au life [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 3k words, F/M, because i just needed to write an au that combined all three of those things, crossposted to tumblr, modern/muggle/university au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/widowhunt/pseuds/widowhunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I guess I’ll have to ask if you want to have an intellectual discussion over not-coffee instead, then,’</p>
<p>‘Seriously? That’s your line? What happened to “did you hurt yourself when you fell from heaven?” or “I must need a map, since I’m lost in your eyes,”’</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>In which Lily Evans hates coffee and James Potter catches her ditching her not-class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	• biochemistry •

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: I started this at stupid o’clock yesterday and barely proofread it but I hope you still like it
> 
> Secondary warning: I'm considering writing more of this if I ever get bored but this was not supposed to be 3k+ words and yet it is

‘This is ridiculous,’ the girl muttered under her breath, definitely to herself, and definitely referring to the nth cup of black coffee she’d had in four days.

Which, incidentally, was the last time she actually slept.

Why was she still drinking coffee? Nothing had changed since the last time she’d gone to a café, just as it hadn’t changed from the time before that or even the time before that. She still vastly preferred literally any other kind of caffeine, but here she was, drinking crudely made black coffee twelve hours after she finished all of the projects she was juggling. Between work and school, she was a certified workaholic, but even she got overloaded.

It was safe to say that Lily Evans was not having a particularly good few days.

A first year university student, Lily had managed to swing herself a full scholarship to pay for her tuition, but when it came to anything else—books, rent, food, and clothing—she was painfully limited. She supposed this would happen at some point, seeing as her parents had offered for her to live with them until she got settled into school, but her sister had already taken them up on that offer and ever since Lily had gotten an acceptance letter to one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the UK, Petunia hadn’t been the easiest person to get along with.

Lily had refused to let her parents pay for her rent, since it was supposed to be her bid for independence, so that meant she had to get a job. Luckily for her, she discovered that she had a talent for computer design and after a trial web design project that turned out wildly successful, the firm that had hired her sent her an email asking her to stay on as a paid intern in their software design department. She’d started out at the bottom, doing odd jobs and fetching snacks and refreshments, but she proved her worth when she’d solved a problem in coding that her higher-ups had failed to catch. Since then, they’d trusted her with working on projects of increasing importance, which is what she had been working on the moment her professors decided to assign three major projects all at once.

She finally had an opportunity for some peace, and yet instead of lying down in her nice warm bed and sleeping for the entire weekend, she was putting on her jacket and grabbing her bag as she left for a lecture in a program that she wasn’t even in.

And for some godforsaken reason, she’d absently remembered to grab the travel mug that her crudely made coffee was in as she left.

Coffee, in Lily’s opinion, was _always_ pretty disgusting unless it was pumped with cream and sugar and flavour shots, no matter if the person making it was a world-class barista. And once it got to that point, it really was no longer coffee, but a very unhealthy blend of calories and sugar, _especially_ if you ordered from Starbucks.

Unfortunately, Lily ordered from her local Starbucks so often that the baristas there knew her name and order by heart, and usually had it waiting for her as soon as she walked in the door. Her standard order, unless it was the holidays and they had their winter specials, was a grande cinnamon dolce latte, more often than not paired with a strawberry blueberry parfait, but she could sometimes be persuaded into a pastry.

As she passed by her local Starbucks on the way to the lecture, she faltered in her step. She’d left early enough to be on time for the lecture with a short stop, so as she pushed open the door to the café, she tossed the entire travel mug in the bin; she'd been needing to get a new one anyway. To replace it, she took her wallet out and expected to pay for her latte immediately as usual, but instead of the usual baristas, there was a slightly below average height boy standing behind the counter. He had sandy blonde hair, was slightly pudgy, and looked to be around Lily’s age—but if he lived in the area, he was remarkably absent from her memory.

Deciding that this new person was not likely to have been informed of her usual, Lily approached the counter (thank god there was no line; she didn't know if she could emotionally put up with a line when she just really needed caffeine that wasn't completely awful and bitter) and caught the boy’s attention.

‘I’ll have a grande cinnamon dolce latte and… oh, to hell with it, a coffee cake as well,’ she decided, as reflecting on the last few days supported having a pick-me-up. After a moment biting her question back, she decided to come out and ask, ‘Are you from around here?’

The boy looked slightly startled by the question, but nodded. ‘Yeah, I just moved,’ he said, handing her the coffee cake after she paid, which she then put in her bag for later. ‘My friend goes to Cardiff U. He was commuting, since we didn’t live _too_ far, but it was a little too much in the long run and he had to move. None of us wanted to split up yet, so we came with him,’

‘So you all packed up and left so he could attend school?’ He nodded, and she raised her eyebrows. ‘Wow. You guys must be really close.’

‘I guess,’ he said, looking up from her drink briefly. ‘I’ve always sort of gotten the impression that I was sort of… just there, but they did ask if I was coming, so that was nice,’

‘Well, if they didn’t want you around, they wouldn’t have asked, would they? Maybe they just aren’t sure how to show they appreciate you, for some reason or another,’ she said with a reassuring smile, which he seemed to be thankful for, judging by how much whipped cream he put on her latte (it rivaled the volume of the drink itself).

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said, handing the drink to her over the counter. ‘Grande cinnamon dolce latte,’ he said, in true Starbucks barista fashion, which gained him a laugh from her.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, ‘you’ll be seeing a lot of me, I think, I come in here a lot—of course, that all depends on how long you can stand the other University students, particularly the boys in the History and Italian program. They come in here just as often as I do, but they’re a lot… louder.’

‘Oh, do you go to Cardiff?’

‘Mhmm, International Relations and Politics,’ she said, ‘which reminds me; what program’s your friend in?’

‘Biochem. I don’t know how often your programs overlap, but just in case, his name’s James Potter.’

'Our programs don’t overlap at all, but sometimes I do go sit in on lectures, I find them rather interesting,’ she admitted, lowering her voice slightly to avoid informing the entire café.

‘Really?’ She nodded. ‘You’re braver than I,’ he said, getting a laugh from Lily again.

‘Biochemistry isn’t so bad, even if I don’t understand it all the time. Reckon I could get a better mark than a few of the students in the program at least, not all of them are so bright and it worries me that they’re interested in a branch of chemistry… you should get your James friend to give you a basic explanation of it some time, it won’t seem so scary then,’ she said, checking her watch for the time as she spoke. ‘Ah, well, I should go; I’m actually on my way to a lecture right now,’

‘Biochemistry?’ he asked, and she knew he was joking, but she did have her own classes with lectures, and it was a rather uncanny guess if he was at all serious.

‘Actually, yes,’ she said, pushing open the door and waving to him as she left.

It was funny how she walked into that conversation and come out of it with the name of a student in the very program that she’d been attending lectures from all year, despite not being in the program. She didn’t know who that barista was, and she hadn’t thought to ask. As far as she was concerned, James Potter, Biochemistry Major was a very odd piece of information to get from a boy she didn’t know.

But she wondered. Had she seen him before? Did she subconsciously remember what he looked like without knowing who he was? More so, had she already talked to him? It wasn’t likely, as she generally tried not to talk to anybody in the program unless it was necessary—she didn’t like disrupting the class, and more often than not, she was genuinely interested in what there was to learn. No matter how it sounded, she didn't go there to make friends. But still…

The thought was still on her mind as the lecture hall came into sight—there was nobody talking in the hallway, and a glance at her watch told Lily that the walk to the lecture took longer than she anticipated, so she slipped in, hoping to not attract too much attention as she took a seat at the back of the hall.

Lily dedicated the first forty-five minutes of the lecture to scanning the room, looking at the backs of other students’ heads to see if she could recognize any of them as James Potter. As it happened, she recognized plenty of the students, as this wasn’t a rare hobby of hers, but she couldn’t put the name to most of them. There were a few students that she did know the names of—Nikki Lansdowne (an absolute sweetheart), Illiyana Greengrass (who was not as much of a sweetheart), and Oliver Thomas (he’d gotten into Cardiff U on an athletic scholarship, but broke the jocks-are-dumb stereotype by being one of the smartest in the room), to name a few.

She spent the following fifteen minutes trying desperately to turn her attention back to what the professor was saying, but found she couldn’t do it. It wasn’t a good day for actually using her brain, as it turned out. Deciding that maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all, sneaking into a biochemistry lecture on zero hours of sleep, she stood up and quietly grabbed her bag, which was sitting at her feet. She hadn’t bothered taking off her jacket, which proved to be a smart decision in the long run.

Thank god she was sitting right next to the door, because it made slipping out of the hall that much easier.

Unfortunately, she ran into somebody just as she left, almost spilling what was left of her latte when the cup got crushed between their bodies.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said hurriedly, making sure that there wasn’t anything to clean up, else she’d offer to pay for dry cleaning, but by some stroke of luck there wasn’t even a drop. Satisfied, she looked up and found herself face to face with a tall boy who had messy black hair and hazel eyes.

‘Hey, no problem, you’re tiny,’ he grinned at her suddenly ruffled expression, ‘I just mean that it’ll take a lot more than a body-check from someone who’s smaller than me to require an apology. No harm done.’

She pursed her lips, clearly suspicious of the tiny comment—she was 5’6”, after all, which wasn’t bad. ‘Still though, I could have spilled a hot drink on you,’ she said, taking a sip of what was left despite the damaged cup and frowning, ‘or, never mind. It’s not actually hot anymore, so I guess you’re right… pity.’

‘Ouch, you don’t even know me and you want to spill coffee on me?’

‘ _Not_ coffee, I’ve had enough of that in the last four days to last me a lifetime, and it’s disgusting. It was a latte, and I meant it’s a pity that I didn’t get to finish it before it got cold,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

‘That make a lot more sense than dumping hot liquid on someone you’ve never met, I’ll admit,’ he said, and Lily let out a laugh.

‘No kidding,’

‘So, why were you ditching the lecture?’ From the tone in his voice, it was pretty obvious that he was stalling something, and she suspected he was taking the opportunity to talk to her partially to delay going into the lecture. _Maybe he doesn’t have an assignment that’s due_ , she theorized, then pushed it out of mind because it really wasn’t her business, and she wouldn't appreciate prying strangers if it was her.

‘Mainly because I haven’t slept in four days and I’m not even in the biochemistry program,’ she said, to his evident astonishment, ‘so there really was no consequence of leaving,’

‘Did you get horribly lost on your way to your own class?’ He asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘I mean, McGonagall is a great professor, but it’s not exactly a class you sneak into if you don’t get it,’

‘Who said I didn’t get it? I’ve been sneaking in all year,’

He rather looked like he’d been hit over the head at the confession, and Lily pressed her lips together to avoid laughing at how dumbstruck he looked. ‘Are you serious,’ he said, after opening and closing his mouth in an impressive imitation of a fish. ‘I guess I’ll have to ask if you want to have an intellectual discussion over not-coffee instead, then,’

At that, Lily _did_ laugh, raising her eyebrows incredulously. ‘Seriously? _That’s_ your line? What happened to “did you hurt yourself when you fell from heaven?” or “I must need a map, since I’m lost in your eyes,”’

‘Oh, I didn’t think those would work, you’re much too academic for them,’ he said, waving a hand and shoving it in his pocket with a shrug.

‘How’d you come to that conclusion?’ He was right, of course, but was she really that easy to read?

‘Nobody pulls four all-nighters in a row unless they have a metric fuckton of work to do for a deadline, Red,’

‘I suppose you're r—sorry, what’d you call me?’

‘I called you Red,’ he said unabashedly, ‘unless you have a name that I can call you that _isn’t_ a nickname inspired by your rather striking hair colour,’

_Oh, that was smooth_ , she thought, narrowing her eyes (but still smiling) as though it was a tough decision. ‘Lily Evans,’ she said after a pause.

‘Well, Lily Evans, would you care to join me sometime for an intellectual discussion over not-coffee?’ he asked, carrying through on his revised pickup line, and she was admittedly very curious over what he was going to use before she told him that she was a regular visitor.

Lily made a humming sound as she made out that she was pretending to consider the offer, but in all honesty, she really _was_ considering it. It had been a while since she’d last gone on a date, and he’d been a dud from the tourism program that she’d gone out with out of courtesy. Thankfully, she hadn’t needed to politely tell him that she wasn’t interested, because the date was just as dull for him as it had been for her, and he realized (she supposed) that he was only interested in her when he thought she was a quiet, library-frequenting bookworm.

She was, in fact, a library-frequenting bookworm in her spare time, but quiet? Hardly.

This boy though, was a lot more interesting than Logan, and she didn’t even know his name yet—was that a good sign about how the date would go? It was safe to say that the answer to that was probably an enthusiastic ‘yes’. Besides, she had the next week off work, since her superiors were going on a business trip and they’d been gracious enough to give the rest of the department time off in thanks for their hard work on the recent flood of projects. She had the time, so why not?

Still, she did at least want to know this boy’s name, so she acted as though she hadn’t made up her mind and said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, what would I tell Marlene? She’d want to know who I was meeting, and I can hardly say, “some boy I met in the hall outside biochemistry,” can I?’

‘Hmm, in that case, I _guess_ you can call me James Potter,’

It was Lily's turn to look like she'd been hit over the head. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in slight shock—there was a long pause that seemed like it might have been longer than it was, but then her face softened and she laughed. The coincidence was so ridiculous; what were the odds that the boy she’d met in the coffee shop would essentially be predicting the next hour? That the friend he’d told her about would be standing in front of her in just one hour’s time, asking her on a date?

His expression changed to one of amused confusion, and she shook her head. ‘Your friend made my latte,’ she offered as an explanation, taking out a pen and a scrap of paper as she spoke and scrawling her name and number on it. Lily didn’t believe in fate—she thought it was a pathetic excuse for not taking action in situations you didn’t like. But if this wasn’t a convenient series of coincidences that she’d like to pursue (one could even call it a 'sign'), then her name was Bambi.

‘Peter?’ he asked, eyebrows lifting.

‘If you say so. I didn’t catch his name. Caught yours, though, funny how that worked out,’ she said, handing the paper to him with a smile. ‘Do try not to call for the next eight hours at least, I’ll be catching up on some lost sleep.’

‘And here I was, going to call you as soon as you walked out the door,’ he quipped, folding the piece of paper and slipping it into his jeans pocket.

‘I s’pose you _could_ , but you’d be disrupting the lecture, and I’m sure McGonagall wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted for a phone call,’ she said, fixing him with a look. ‘Because as soon as I walk away, you’re going to go into class, _right_?’

‘Uh… yeah,’ he said, fighting back a smile.

Lily, on the other hand, let the corners of her mouth turn up, and she curled her hand around the strap of her bag, sitting on her shoulder, as she started to walk away, twisting around to look at him as she did. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘and don’t forget to call—I don’t like wasting my phone number on people who aren’t going to use it,’

She didn’t offer him a goodbye as she turned on her heel and pushed the door open, turning down the street and starting her walk back to her apartment. It wasn’t a long walk, as one of the conditions when she moved was that it was a reasonable walking distance from campus, but even so, she’d only made it halfway before she heard her text tone go off. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she blinked in slight confusion at first, but upon realizing what it meant, she smiled.

There, sitting on the lit up screen, was an unknown number:

_You said not to call, but you never said anything about texting._


End file.
